Domaine Jones Vineyard Collection Macabeu Orange

Description

Domaine Jones Vineyard Collection Macabeu Orange is made from 100% Macabeu from Katie’s tiny Le Colombier vineyard in Tuchan. As an orange wine, it is aged on the grape skins for a period of time. This is a lovely, fragrant and delicate style of orange wine rather than the more funky, extreme style, “ever so slightly orange” ar Katie puts it.

Domaine Jones is owned and run by Katie Jones. Katie was the Sales and Marketing Director for the Mont Tauch co-operative in the Languedoc for nearly twenty years until she fell in love with a small 3.5 hectare vineyard in the Maury Valley in 2007. The wine-making philosophy at Domaine Jones is to employ traditional, down-to-earth farming methods and innovative winemaking techniques to capture the characteristics of the terroir and the local area. Domaine Jones wines are only produced in tiny quantities – this truly is boutique wine-making. Katie Jones has recently acquired some more vineyards in the village of Tuchan and many of them are planted with low-yielding old vines with some up to 100 years old. The vineyards are planted with a mix of different grape varieties, co-planted in the same vineyard in place, which was a common way of planting in the early part of the last century. Katie initially made Domaine Jones Grenache Noir and White from her own vineyards and later purchased a vineyard in Fitou. Today she has even more projects including the Along Came Jones and La Perle Rare ranges.

Katie is a major fan of old vines and has been snapping up small, old vine vineyards near Tuchan as and when she can. She is a member of The Old Vine Conference and also runs an enormously popular “adopt an old vine” scheme on her website. Her orange wine is part of the Jones “Vineyard Collection” wines which includes other single variety wines including the Syrah and Carignan.

The Macabeu grapes for the Domaine Jones Vineyard Collection Macabeu Orange are handpicked from a tiny vineyard known locally as Le Colombier. The vines are 60 years old, planted on limestone-clay soils, and are probably some of the last of this grape variety in the village of Tuchan. The vines produce a tiny quantity of grapes each year producing powerful, concentrated flavours with a surprising acidity for Macabeu.